Period Property in the 21st century and beyond. *LINK*

[Anonymous]

We have a problem. We have used about half of all the world’s store of oil that is easily recovered by conventional methods. Within the next very few years we will probably reach the point of ‘Peak Oil’, the time when oil production reaches its maximum. After this time production will decline. The decline will be for the physical reasons of geology and will be not be halted by demand or price. No matter how high the price goes, the oil will not flow quickly enough to meet demand.

We have another problem. Despite the protestations of a few mavericks, the theory of anthropogenic global warming has become one of the most widely studied, thoroughly tested and universally accepted theories in the history of science. Burning fossil fuels results in climate change. Shortage of oil will make the problem worse if coal is substituted. There is not enough uranium to substitute even if other objections to nuclear power were overcome. The future will be one of energy demand destruction to the point where alternative sources can meet demand. No choice.

As enthusiasts for period properties we have a particular contribution to make. Old houses were built before the era of cheap oil. They were built out of locally, and often sustainably, produced materials, with very low embodied energy. They were also built with little appreciation of the benefits of high thermal insulation.

There is a powerful argument for the demolition of very large numbers of Victorian houses. In the long term, demolition and rebuilding is energy efficient since the savings made in new better-insulated homes will more than outweigh the energy consumed in the process.

Fascinating as arcane debate about the relative merits of horns, joggles and sash pockets may be, I wonder if we might lead more constructive lives if we discussed how we might care for our heritage of historic fabric whilst adapting to a future which will be very different to the past.

As a modest example that may stimulate discussion, the link below leads to Andy Hunt’s approach to living in a Victorian terrace.



Green Cottage, Bury, Lancs.

 

[Anonymous]

I disagree. The materials that would need to be produced for all these new houses will cause much more damage to the environment than the heat that ecapes from Victorian/period houses. What we will we do with all the demolition created from these houses?

The link to this 'energy' house is shocking - the UPVC windows are one of the most environmentally unfriendly features you can add to your house!!! They are also a fire hazzard - they are not a bonus!

 

[Anonymous]

Come off it Biff - why only Victorian properties on the hit list?? Why not all old buildings? Similar arguments apply... very few can be made as energy efficient as new build, if that's the narrow energy criteria used...

Yurts. Wonder how energy efficient they are?

Yes, we have an energy problem. littering the beauty spots of the north with wind farms isn't going to solve it, (although this will line the pockets of a few) but I don't think demolition of most of the country's housing stock will either.

And as for placcy windows... grrrrr!!!!!

 

[Anonymous]

I wish you were right, Peter, but when I looked into the figures I was disappointed to find that the energy sums added up the wrong way. The energy used for heating is much more significant than the energy used in building. The concept of emergy (yes, it has an 'm') is useful here. The old building rubble can of course be recycled for aggregate in concrete (he writes, provocatively).

Glad you spotted the plastic windows. I don't think it was Andy who fitted them. But they exist. What should he do about them? Surely, from the environmental point of view, he should keep and maintain them as long as possible (might not be long!) before replacing with sustainably produced and better looking materials.

 

[Anonymous]

Steady on Evelyn, it's not my list. I mentioned Victorian because I think a lot of the houses under the Pathfinder threat are of that period. Medieval houses are not much of a problem because there aren't many of them.

My yurt has a negative CO2 effect because the wood and cotton materials are a carbon sink that would otherwise have returned to the atmosphere. It is heated by a wood stove, whose fuel is carbon neutral. But the stove itself is cast iron made in China. I hope it will last a very long time so that its CO2 contribution divided by time will be very small.

Now if everyone in the world lived in yurts....

 

[Anonymous]

The Pathfinder threat, if you really go into it, is not about the properties but more about greed, stupidity, neglect etc etc. If you believed what that woman said about the Welsh Streets on Y and Y I'd forget it! And Ringo has now spoken out I gather!

Why only the terraces in the north? Why not all those terraces in Bath? Georgian squares in London??

 

[Anonymous]

First, energy use versus rebuild energy... I'd say there are the wrong things to compare, because they leave out the one sensible option, which is insulating the existing housing. You certainly dont need cavity walls to do that. Insulation applied either internally or externally is far cheaper than a rebuild.

NT

 

[Anonymous]

There are some naivisms and omissions on his site, but the reality is he's done more than most of us that talk about it, but all too often do little.

At the last house I had passive heating and cooling, and aggressively energy efficient lighting, but here have simply been too busy to introduce anything more than a few energy saving tweaks. Will get further in time I've no doubt, but one of the truths about energy saving is its fairly low on the list for almost everyone.

I was surprised to see no mention - unless my brain is just not in gear today - of wall insulation, which is surely one of the biggest things one can do to a Vic house to cut energy use.

Maybe if I get more time later can talk about the various other things that can be done to reduce nrg.

Re upvc: I think the lowest energy thing to do is just leave whatevers already there in place. Even if its upvc.

Re energy price increase: it cant be assumed that it will rise far. But thats another topic, its all too much to squeeze into one!

Maybe later!

NT

 

[Anonymous]

Heating:

1. Insulation insulation insulation is the biggest benefit one can introduce. Cavity walls have nothing to do with it in the sense that one can introduce insulation on the inside, outside or middle of a wall, and either way it still insulates.

2. His heating is woefully inefficient. While todays gas boilers are achieving >90% efficiency, crude Victorian technology woodburners are closer to 25%. It also has no thermostatic control, no timer, nothing. It is labour intensive to operate, and human labour is very high in energy use. His log growing, cutting and delivery is not carbon neutral as he claims. And he stores fuel around the burner - house fires are not very energy efficient. Also he could be burning free scrap instead of new wood. And finally, low bedroom temperatures cause an increase in night time deaths, which somewhat overshadows the question of heating efficiency. In short the heating is naive. Fit proper self feeding heating system.

3. Heavy curtains reduce window heat loss in winter evenings and at night.

4. Solar heating can be done with minimal cost and high returns, but only if its designed appropriately. Beware that most solar designs are pointless. One could use south facing walls for solar space heating in winter. Quite large power is available like this for the cost of a few hundred in materials.

5. water heating: preheat the HW tank cold feed with a low cost solar panel, eg a black house radiator with polythene cover and foil reflector. These are unspectacular performers but are very low cost, so can be energy and money efficient. Heat the main tank with an efficient panel, if you can make it pay.

6. An additional hose panel could be used to feed the kitchen sink if desired. These are ultra cheap, both to make (£10-15) and install, heat up quickly, and deliver a hosepipe full of 70-80C hot water every 45 minutes, even with the most basic design. Improved versions heat up faster and deliver more. This is a good match for kitchen hot water use, run this to a 3rd tap on the sink and you wont often use the tanked HW.

Lighting, there are 3 more things that can be done.

1. Use more than one bulb per room, allowing a choice of lighting levels. One then naturally selects lower levels in evening for comfort, and higher levels for work.

2. Add external reflectors to double light levels in rooms, and delay lighting switch on. This is especially effective in small windowed older houses, and greatly improves the atmosphere in the house as well as cutting energy use. Exterior mirrors need suitable paint protection to avoid the reflective coating peeling off.

3. Introduce ultra low power lighting throughout the house that stays on all night. This uses a tiny amount of electricity, but reduces accidents, which are not energy friendly. The overall effect is energy saving, misery saving and convenient. Ideally these lights can have battery backup too. What sort of powers are needed? Around 1-2w per room.

4. Avoid lampshades that arent white, they waste light and thus energy.

Food:

1. Microwave cooking and tiered pots reduces energy use.

2. Insulating the fridge and freezer with another layer of foam can dramatically cut energy use. Must be the right type of foam, else it waterlogs.

3. Forest gardening permits maximum yields with minimum energy input. The name is a bit misleading, as it does not involve planting a forest.

4. If you enjoy garden cooking, solar cookers are very easy to make. These are practical for daily use in summer if the kitchen opens onto the garden. Just have them outside the door, ready to use any time in the day. Simpler cookers dont cook everything, but are useful for a fair range of foods.

Bathroom:

1. gel bags are a waste of energy, rubble from the garden is just as effective and requires no energy.

2. Using grey or rain water for loo flushing is possible, but what is saved or gained will vary.

3. Those CDs increase cleaning requirement: use a white wall, it will reflect more light and not add the cleaning overhead.

4. Add a drain water heat exchanger. These can pay back in under a year.

5. add aerators to taps, reduce water use thus energy use. Possibly use aeration on shower too.

NT

 

[Anonymous]

Thought provoking stuff NT. I do think we should be looking more carefully at what can be done to make homes more energy efficient instead of demolition and windfarms, which is a nightmare coming to ruin our beautiful area very soon.

I must get our loft better insulated before the winter, and closing the shutters as soon as it gets dusk makes a tangible difference.

Fuel is an ongoing worry. We have solid fuel central heating, would like to change it, but we are limted for choice. We are wondering about changing to biodiesel stuff - oil is out of the question I think - I wonder if anyone has any information and experience of this?

I still like my wood fires, but we do reserve those for evenings. Thick clothing helps through the day!

 

[Anonymous]

Well, I do agree with the principle of future windfarms, in certain selected locations, but I do not agree with mass proliferation of the things untill they are more efficient and sustainable in the long term. Else we will end up with many millions of pounds worth of useless windmills - and all to appease the misguided ecowarriors and so that our dear leaders can tick a few more boxes. If they are going to be rolled out it would be sensible to wait untill the technology is right!

My vote at present goes with developing more woodburning power stations. Good now and will be much better and adaptable in the future.

When I was at Uni I wrote my dissertation on the development of building regulations. My conclusion was that spending £600 million on upping the U-Value of a tiny number of new buildings (new buildings make up only a miniscule percentage of the built stock in this country) was a complete waste of resources and the dosh would be better spent insulating existing stock.

Didn't go down well with the 'brown-sandals' but I was essentially correct. There are many millions of uninsulated (or extremenly poorly insulated) existing buildings in the UK and if we were really serious about increasing efficiency we should deal with those first.

 

[Anonymous]

I'm sure you're right about the poorly insulated building stock, Johneds, but the technology of wind turbines has been making very rapid progress. They have reached the point where they are have become remarkably effective electricity generators. I live near a windfarm, operated by Ecotricity, that currently has ten Enercon 600kw turbines and will soon get another ten 800kw turbines. The embodied energy is recovered within about five months and from then on it's all profit in energy terms. Electricity is produced at a lower cost than much conventional supply. The turbines have a direct drive with no gearbox. They are silent. You can stand underneath and hear only the grass rustling in the wind. Beauty, of course, is in the eye of the beholder, but I think they're beautiful.


More energy ramblings

 

[Anonymous]

I agree that turbines have made good progress but the technology is still in its infancy and efficiencies will increase even further over the next, say, 10 years or so.

My point really is that there are only a limited number of prime sites (some of which have allready been used up) and these should not be wasted untill the technology is absolutely right.

 

[Anonymous]

That's a bit like saying there was no point making racing cars until we were in a position to build the 2005 McLaren (or whatever). Technological development is incremental and you can't build a good turbine until you've learn't the lessons from the ones that didn't work quite so well. In the example I gave, eperience with the 600kw Enercon has led directly to the development of the new 800kw machine which is significantly more efficient.

 

[Anonymous]

No its nothing like that at all. There was plenty of room to accommodate almost enless numbers of cars before the McClaren.

People seem to believe that wind energy is an endless resource. In fact it is not because there are limited good sites. If all those good sites are used for inferior turbines now then they will either end up being removed to make way - which would be dreadful waste - or we will have to put the newer turbines on the least suitable sites - which would also be a dreadful waste.

There is no problem with building isolated turbines for research purposes, or even limited wind farms. But if we roll out and use up all the good space now it will be regretted later.

Windfarm sites are a limited and precious resource and I believe they should be used wisely.

 

[Anonymous]

What is actually happening is that in our beautiful, unspoilt but windy Nothumbrian countryside, which we also need as a tourist attraction, winfarm companies are ganging together with farmers and putting in many many small applications. The result will be cumulatively dreadful. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and places of unspoilt beauty in my view should reamain so. I find the wretched things intensely annoying, restless and distracting.

They can never really satisafactorily be removed, really, as there is so much underground gubbins to consider.

 

[Anonymous]

Dunno where you live but my local windfarm is in a field that was used for grazing sheep. Now that it has ten trubines in it, it is still used for grazing sheep but they now have something to lean against. There's plenty of room in the next field for more, and the next, and the next. And these turbines work just fine even if there is no further improvement. The Lincolnshire Marsh will soon be self-sufficient for electricity.

 

[Anonymous]

I take your point, Evelyn, about bits of Northumberland. Not in that backyard - but they're welcome to mine. Living below the high tide level kind of concentrates the mind when it come to doing one's bit about global warming. My old house is only worth looking after so long as the seal level does not rise.

 

[Anonymous]

er, sea level of course. Though there are plenty of seals here too.

 

[Anonymous]

I have just read this string and it made me wonder why does every room in the house have to be heated.
I was brought up in a large Georgian farmhoue during the forties and fifties. The only heating was a cast iron range that cooked and heated a side tank of water plus of course heating the kitchen.On rare occasions when we had visitors we did light the front room fire.
I recently visited this house .There were radiators in every room heated by a large oil burner. When I told the owner how we lived she told me that was unnacceptable in the 21st century.I left wondering why do we need so much comfort nowadays to the detriment of the planets resourses.